I was very pleased by the first season of Elementary. It isn't quite as insanely great as Sherlock, but it is up there.

I'm watching Sleepy Hollow right now. Still undecided. The lead is a little bit too modern-day British and "slick" for my taste. Just doesn't ring true. I do like the establishing shots of homely Hudson Valley towns; it is not "home," but I know the area and various relatives like up there.

Anyone else think the treatment of Maria Hill as a character was just dreadful? This is the second-in-command of SHIELD having the piss taken out of her for supposedly drawing a turd in a subordinate's status review in front of that subordinate? If you don't think that's more than a little misogynistic, try and imagine Coulson doing that gag with Nick Fury...

It would play exactly the same way with Fury in Hill's place, because neither Hill nor the picture were the target of the joke. Ward's personality being so negative that it could only be expressed on a written assessment report with a doodle was. And it wasn't until Ward left the room that it was revealed that Hill wrote the assessment, so her command authority wasn't being undermined. Which it wouldn't have been anyway because Coulson wasn't saying 'look how stupid your assessing officer is for drawing a poo on your report' he was saying 'your personality sucks so much that your assessing officer could only draw a poo on your report.'

It's true that the butt of the joke was Ward rather than Hill, but Hill clearly seemed embarrassed by it (and Coulson did mention to Ward that Hill had written the report before he started to read from it). Hill's reaction is what seemed wrong to me - they're painting Coulson as a kind of plays-by-his-own-rules, not-much-respect-for-the-chain-of-command sort of guy, so I buy him making that joke despite it reflecting poorly on Hill. But the Agent Hill from the comics wouldn't respond with tongue-tied fluster, she'd tear Coulson a new asshole. OTOH, the portrayal of Hill in the Avengers film was much less badass than the version in the comics, so maybe her portrayal here was consistent with that.

I thought the pilot was alright, though it seemed, like a lot of pilots, to suffer from having to be a show-real to get the project made, leading to a lot of explaining the concept and characters in words of one syllable to make sure the TV execs get it. Hopefully it will get a bit less by-the-numbers in its first few proper episodes.

I zipped through the first season of Broadchurch last week, after hearing that Tennant and Coleman were winning awards (two of my favourite Britsh actors). It was good, melodramatic, assembled all the modern elements of social-media and journalism and badly-kept secrets and weird legal grey areas. Plus there was Olivia Coleman screaming, flinging spittle, and kicking the shit out of someone. Dug it. Not really sure where they'll go in a second season - clearly they'll stay in the town and follow the characters, but I hope they don't make up another "Crazy vicious crime shocks sleepy small town" since, well, they're not sleepy anymore, so ....

Anyone else think the treatment of Maria Hill as a character was just dreadful? This is the second-in-command of SHIELD having the piss taken out of her for supposedly drawing a turd in a subordinate's status review in front of that subordinate? If you don't think that's more than a little misogynistic, try and imagine Coulson doing that gag with Nick Fury

You know what - I thought Coulson was in charge as he had the power in the scene.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to describe it as misogynistic, I'd say it's likely the focus was just "Caulson's the star of our show" and they forgot about the actual rank of the characters. Lazy really.

I've always had the impression that Coulson and Hill are roughly the same rank. They both report directly to Fury. They're essentially Colonels to Fury's General. The only difference is that Coulson is a field officer (he was in charge of the Tony Stark de-brief in Iron Man, the Tony Stark detail in IM2, commanded the New Mexico field base in Thor, iirc was in charge of the Tesseract research base in Avengers) and Hill works in Central Command (she runs the day to day on the Helicarrier and some of the other primary SHIELD bases).

And that's everything for Breaking Bad. Spoiler free review- it ended perfectly. I really couldn't be more satisfied with the series as a whole. It was like watching a giant, well-crafted novel unfold over six years.

So that was excellent, everything about was how you end a show. People could learn a lot from that last episode.

Especially the automated machine gun. Genius. Never mess with Heisenburg!!

But now that have seen and processed the series as a whole, I have certain issues about what says philosophically...I don't know if thats a word...

I brought up the notion that I dislike how they use the karma stuff to say that Walt needs to have all of his crap come back to him in some negative form. I disagree, if you look at how the notion of Karma works. It works on the universe's time table, not some human need to make something happen. Plenty of the people escaped what they supposedly happen to them and seemingly not get any repercussions at all. Thats not to say that I disagree with the notion of karma but if you look at the theory behind it, it operates on a universal time scale beyond immediate human satisfaction. Also, understand, that this notion is about universal balance.

That means balance in all things, so potentially, even if your the best person on the planet, there is potential for horrible things to happen to you. Why? Because you put in so much positive energy into the universe that it has balance itself out by creating negative energy to counter it. The opposite could held true and the what our normal assumption of what karma is could be held true as well.

How this relates to Breaking Bad is that I felt that Walt shouldn't have died, especially the way he died. He died in a way that felt too convenient, that represented the universe cashing in on all of the "evil" put into the universe when that probably wouldn't have been the case. The people who morally should have died sometimes are the ones who survive. Mendela comes to mind as an example.

I think it would have served better for Walt to survive with the notion that he can't be with his family again for as long as he lives, personally.

The second issue I had is that I always read into the show is that anything is possible when you have enough drive and will. What I didn't like is how not making the choice to make meth was actually better than dying in mediocrity. That it was better for him to be like everyone else, work a horrible 9 to 5 job, slowly die of cancer that hit him out of nowhere, and be a doormat for universe at large.

I find that I disagree with that notion and find that the improvement of self and becoming what believe yourself capable of through sheer drive and will and is a very positive message to expel.

I'll grant the karma point, but while karma does work on a universal scale over multiple lifetimes, stories always work within a human-scale timeframe. It may not be accurate to the concept but it does mean the narrative makes more sense.

Right no I'm with you, its the subtext, pseudo-philosophical concepts that I'm disagreeing with. Its like the Watchmen thing of why we shouldn't rely on costumed vigilantes and stuff. Another concept that I completely disagree with.

S.H.I.E.L.D. shows great promise. The script offered both shoutouts to classic Marvel moments ("With great power comes...") and some nice one-liners (Coulson's remark to May about needing a moat). Coulson and May have become instant favorites, although Skye still hasn't grown on me.